April 2014

New York, April 30,
2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists is disturbed by reports in Turkey's pro-government media that made false
claims about CPJ. The reports said CPJ made a statement on April 18 saying
Turkey holds only 15 journalists behind bars. CPJ did not issue a statement.

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New York, April 30, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the attack on the home of an Indian journalist and calls on authorities to take immediate steps to identify and prosecute the perpetrators. Devinder Pal is a critical investigative journalist for the Punjabi-language daily The Punjabi Tribune.

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Saaid Shihata, reporter for Yaqeen, an
online news network that is supportive of former President Mohamed Morsi, was
arrested on December 30, 2013, while another Yaqeen reporter, Ahmed
Gamal, was arrested two days prior, according to Yahya Khalaf, Yaqeen's
executive director, who spoke to CPJ. Both journalists were held after covering
clashes
between students and security forces at Al-Azhar
University in Nasr City neighborhood of Cairo.

New York, April 30,
2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists commends today's decision by
Oktyabrsky District Court in Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, to renew the investigation into the case of imprisoned journalist and rights
defender Azimjon Askarov, who was imprisoned
in 2010 in retaliation for his work exposing official wrongdoing.

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In the lead-up to World Press Freedom Day, CPJ has started a
campaign
highlighting 10 emblematic cases of journalists in prison and calling on
authorities to release them and all other reporters being held in relation to
their work. CPJ believes that no journalist should be imprisoned for doing
their job.

You, too, can add your voice. Join CPJ in calling on
authorities in repressive countries to #FreeThePress and release all
journalists held for no other crime than covering issues in the public
interest.

New
York, April 29, 2014--At least two journalists who traveled to eastern Ukraine have
been reported missing in the past week, while at least four journalists have
been attacked, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists
is alarmed by the targeting of journalists and media outlets in Ukraine and
calls on all parties to allow them to work freely.

On World Press Freedom Day, CPJ calls for the release of all jailed journalists

By Shazdeh Omari/CPJ News Editor

New York, April 29, 2014—Uzbek editor Muhammad Bekjanov has been in jail for 15 years, one of the longest imprisonments of journalists worldwide. Prominent Iranian journalist Siamak Ghaderi was imprisoned in 2010 and has been beaten and whipped in custody. Vietnamese blogger Nguyen Van Hai, serving a 12-year jail term, could barely walk or talk during a prison visit in July 2013, his family said.

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On April 15, 1989, Hu Yaobang died. Hu had been general secretary
of the Communist Party from 1982 to 1987, and recognized for his leanings
toward economic reform in China. His death led to demonstrations around China,
some of them in Tiananmen Square. On June 4, 1989, Tiananmen became the focus
of the government's wrath, and in the intersections of the broad streets around
the plaza, the government cracked down brutally. Since then, it has been a
government tradition to start cracking down on protesters, critics, and
dissidents before April 15, and this year is no different. China watchers say
the strictures have already begun with warnings to some and detentions for
others. I checked with foreign journalists over the weekend, and they say
they're aware of the crackdowns, but are not feeling any heat themselves. Yet.

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Nairobi, April 28,
2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the Ethiopian
government's arrests of nine journalists in one of the worst crackdowns against
free expression in the country.

"With the latest arrests, Ethiopian authorities are turning the peaceful exercise of free expression into a crime," said CPJ East Africa Representative Tom Rhodes.

On Sunday, a public prosecutor in the capital, Addis Ababa, accused the detainees--editor Asmamaw Hailegeorgis, freelancers Tesfalem Waldyes and Edom Kassaye, and bloggers Abel Wabella, Atnaf Berhane, Mahlet Fantahun, Natnail Feleke, Zelalem Kibret, and Befekadu Hailu--of working with foreign human rights organizations and using social media to create instability in the country, according to news reports and local journalists. Tesfalem, Asmamaw, and Zelalem will have their next court hearing on May 7, while the rest will appear in court on May 8, the same sources said. The journalists have not been formally charged with a crime.

New York, April 25,
2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release of two
journalists in eastern Ukraine and calls for the release of a third journalist
who has not been heard from since April 15. Sergei Lefter, reporter for the Warsaw-based Open Dialogue Foundation, is reportedly in custody of pro-Russian separatists led by Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, the self-proclaimed "people's
mayor" of Sloviansk.

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New
York, April 24, 2014--An investigative journalist in Cameroon told CPJ today
that his car had been destroyed
in an explosion early this morning. Denis Nkwebo said the car was parked
outside his house in the commercial capital of Douala, and that no one was hurt
in the explosion.

Nkwebo, an editor of the leading private daily Le Jour, told CPJ that acquaintances and his contacts within the government had warned him to be careful in his investigation and coverage of Cameroonian security forces. In an April 15 article, Nkwebo said security forces were struggling to stem a spate of kidnappings and armed attacks in the regions bordering unstable Nigeria and the strife-torn Central African Republic.

Bogotá, April 24,
2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Tuesday's attack on the home
of Peruvian journalist Yofré López Sifuentes and calls on authorities to
conduct a thorough investigation and hold the perpetrators to account. Lopez
was unhurt after a bomb exploded, but his parents were injured, according to news
reports.

On Tuesday, the Committee to Protect Journalists expressed its
concerns over the press freedom climate in Iraqi Kurdistan at a press
conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. where we launched our
special report, "Mountain
of impunity looms over Kurdistan journalists." You can watch a video of the
press conference here.

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Dear Ambassadors Kamau and Kőrösi: I am writing to you in your capacity as the co-chairmen of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. Your work and the recommendations of your group will help frame the discussion in the coming year as United Nations member states seek to agree a set of objectives to succeed the Millennium Development Goals beyond 2015. We at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) believe it is vital that your report to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon later this year include freedom of expression and access to information and independent media as part of the post-2015 agenda.

New
York, April 23, 2014--Three local and international journalists are missing or being
held hostage in eastern Ukraine, while unidentified assailantsburned
down the offices of a newspaper. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on
Ukrainian authorities to ensure the safety of journalists covering the crisis.

Here is a cut and paste email
message sent to staffers at The News,
in Islamabad. We have their explicit permission to use it. Actually, they
requested that we use it, in the hope that publicizing it will somehow protect
them.

It's not the first time, and it likely won't be the last: Bangladesh's
International Crimes Tribunal has demonstrated little tolerance for criticism
of its activities. Last week, the tribunal launched contempt of court
proceedings against Dhaka-based British journalist David Bergman for his blog
posts on the court.

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Masked men threw a hand grenade at the home of Express News Bureau Chief Jamshed Baghwan in the Murshadabad neighborhood of Peshawar on April 6, 2014, according to news reports. Baghwan was in his home at the time of the attack, but no one was injured, news accounts said. The main gate of the home and a boundary wall were damaged.

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New York, April 22, 2014--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is concerned about the safety of Simon
Ostrovsky, a reporter with the U.S.-based global news channel VICE News,
who is being held in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. Ostrovsky is in
the custody of pro-Russian separatists led by self-proclaimed "people's mayor"
Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, according to news
reports.

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New York, April 22, 2014--The Committee to Protect
Journalists today called on President Vladimir Putin to veto a new bill that would subject
popular bloggers to the same restrictions as traditional media in Russia. The
bill was approved by Russia's parliament, the State Duma, in a final reading
today.

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New York, April 22, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists is greatly concerned by actions brought by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) against Geo Television today. In its complaint to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, the ISI accused Geo's parent company, the Independent Media Corporation, of conducting a "false and scandalous campaign undermining the integrity and tarnishing the image of state institution (ISI) and its officers."

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New York, April 22, 2014--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the imprisonment of Juliet Michelena Díaz, a member of a
network of citizen journalists, and calls on Cuban authorities to release her
immediately. Michelena was detained on April 7 days after photographing a
police operation in Havana, according to news
reports and local
human rights defenders.

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Iraqi Kurdistan may seem calm compared with much of the
Middle East, but the media are vulnerable whenever internal political tensions
flare. Amid impunity for anti-press attacks, including murder and arson,
journalists say they must self-censor on topics like religion, social
inequality, and corruption associated with powerful officials. A CPJ special report by Namo Abdulla

New York, April 21, 2014--A court in Baku today ordered journalist
Rauf Mirkadyrov, Turkey correspondent for the independent Azerbaijani newspaper
Zerkalo, to jail for three months
pending trial on espionage charges after he was deported from Turkey, news
reports said.

New York, April 21, 2014--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the shutting down of Assandi-Times,
the last remaining independent newspaper in Kazakhstan. A court in Almaty today
declared the weekly a structural part of banned newspaper Respublika, three weeks after court
marshals raidedAssandi-Times'
offices, ordered the journalists to stop working, tried to force the staff out
and seal the premises, and confiscated the paper's archives.

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New York, April 19, 2014­--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed by the continuing violence directed at journalists in
Pakistan. Geo News senior anchor Hamid Mir today was shot three times soon
after he and his driver left Karachi's main airport, according to media reports. The
driver was not wounded.

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New York, April 18, 2014--At least seven journalists were
among those attacked when Iranian guards and intelligence officials raided a
section of Tehran's Evin Prison holding political prisoners on Thursday,
according to news
websites and human
rights groups.

The unprecedented violent attack left dozens of prisoners injured, some hospitalized, and others transferred to solitary confinement, according to news reports.

Charles Xue Biqun, a Chinese-born American
billionaire venture capitalist and a prominent government critic, was released
on bail April 16, 2014, after being arrested in August 2013 for alleged
involvement in prostitution, according to news
reports.

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Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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New
York, April 17, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a brutal
attack on an editor in Ukraine and calls on authorities to conduct a thorough
investigation and apprehend the perpetrators. The editor should also be
provided with protection while he is recovering in the hospital, CPJ said.

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Bangkok, April 17, 2014--A Thai court today formally charged
two journalists for the local Phuketwan news website with criminal
defamation, according to news reports. The charges were brought by a Thai navy
official.

More
than seven years after the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the prominent Novaya Gazeta journalist, a jury is
hearing the case against five defendants in the killing. The suspects were
first announced in 2011, but proceedings did not begin until July 2013, amid controversy. Three of the current defendants
were earlier acquitted of Politkovskaya's murder in a 2009 trial.

In Pakistan, reporting on the
military intelligence services or insurgent groups or machinations within
political parties is the normal grist for the media mill. A lot of the coverage
relies on reporters with inside sources. The sources use the media as a
battleground for their infighting, relying on sympathetic reporters to put
forward their positions. It keeps the wildly popular TV talk show hosts
occupied and tends to fill the inside pages of newspapers, if not always the
front pages. It's not a problem unique to Pakistan, but the country's media have
taken it to a very high level.

This month, Indians are voting in the largest election in
history. It's an exciting exercise in democracy, but it comes against a grim
backdrop: censorship in the country is on the rise, according to a quarterly
report by the South Asian media watchdog, The
Hoot.

Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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New
York, April 15, 2014--Two Egyptian journalists were shot by live ammunition on
Monday while covering clashes in Cairo between security forces and university students
supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood, according to news reports. At least one
student was killed in the clashes, news
reports said.

New York, April 15, 2014--Authorities in
Cameroon should release a newspaper editor who has been imprisoned since March
29 after being convicted of criminal defamation, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today. On Friday, a judge postponed indefinitely a bail hearing for Amungwa Tanyi Nicodemus, according
to news reports.

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New
York, April 14, 2014--Local and international journalists covering the volatile situation
in eastern Ukraine have been harassed, attacked, detained, and had their
equipment seized, according to news reports and regional press freedom groups.

Rudy Huallpa Cayo, a journalist with local television station Telecultura 7,
lost his left eye after being hit by a rubber bullet while covering a protest
on April 1, 2014, in the province of Melgar, according to news reports.

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Coverage of street demonstrations is an exceptionally dangerous assignment, with journalists subject to assaults, obstruction, detention, raids, threats, censorship orders, and confiscation or destruction of equipment. This report is one in a series of three by Getty photographers who documented for CPJ their recent experiences covering protests and shared their photographs.

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New
York, April 11, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists congratulates Turkish
investigative journalist and book author Ahmet Şık on being awarded UNESCO's
prestigious Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize. The annual prize, named after
slain Colombian journalist Guillermo Cano Isaza, honors a journalist or
organization that "has made an outstanding contribution to the defense of press
freedom." Şık will receive the award on May 2 at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris,
as part of the UNESCO celebrations for World Press Freedom Day.

At the
end of last month, an evacuation order declared during
the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant power plant meltdown was lifted for residents
of a small town in Fukushima Prefecture, the first time an area so close to the
site was declared suitable for habitation. Yet, three years after Earthquake Tōhoku killed 15,000 people and triggered
the nuclear accident, journalists seeking to investigate the disaster face
sustained risks, according to CPJ research.

New York, April 10, 2014--Swaziland police on Wednesday re-arrested veteran
editor Bheki Makhubu and human rights lawyer Thulani Maseko three days after they
had been released from prison, according to news reports. The two, who were first jailed on March 18 and held until Sunday, had written articles that
criticized Swaziland's chief justice, the reports said.

On Wednesday, High Court Judge Mpendulo Simelane issued new arrest warrants for Makhubu, editor of the independent newsmagazine The Nation, and Maseko, alleging that the two had failed to heed an April 1 court order to appear before him, the state-run Swazi Observerreported. Makhubu and Maseko appeared at the High Court in the capital, Mbabane, today, and were sent back to prison pending a court date on April 14, according to the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, a regional human rights group.

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New
York, April 10, 2014--Two journalists were arrested in Egypt on Wednesday and
new charges filed against three others, according to news reports. The
Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Egyptian government's renewed
crackdown on the press as presidential elections approach in May.

Dinh
Dang Dinh, a former Vietnamese schoolteacher and blogger, died on April 3
from cancer of the stomach. Near death, he had been released from his six-year
prison sentence on March 21, and allowed to return home to die in Dak Nong
province in Vietnam's Central Highlands. His crime, to which he had pled not
guilty, had been to blog about corruption and environmental issues. He was found guilty under Article 88-1 (c) of
the Criminal Code for "conducting propaganda against the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam."

New
York, April 9, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by reports
that Ukrainian border guards have denied entry to the country
to several Russian
journalists
over the past few days. Reports say that journalists with the newly reshuffled
RIA Novosti news agency, TV channels Rossiya and Russia Today, the business
daily Kommersant, and Forbes-Russia magazine have all been turned down at the border.

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Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: We are writing to express our concern about the Turkish government's recent steps to restrict the independent Turkish media. In the recent past, your country was hailed as a model for a region aspiring for freedom, democracy, and tolerance. But today Turkey is being criticized as a country that is drifting away from the principles and practices that define true democracy.

The
constitutional chamber of the Costa Rican Supreme Court ruled on March 21, 2014, that
the government's secret monitoring of phone
records of the San José-based daily Diario Extra as part of a
leak investigation was unconstitutional, according to news reports.

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Phoenix, April 8, 2014--The
Committee to Protect Journalists hails today's decision by
the European Court of Justice invalidating the European Union's mandatory data
retention directive.
The court found that the indiscriminate collection of metadata poses a
"particularly serious" and disproportional interference with the right to
privacy. Mass metadata surveillance is "likely to generate in the minds of the
persons concerned the feeling that their private lives are the subject of
constant surveillance," the court said.

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Nairobi, April 8,
2014--Police in the semi-autonomous republic of Somaliland on Thursday raided
the Hargeisa offices of the independent Somali-language paper Haatuf and
its sister English-language weekly, Somaliland Times, and suspended
them indefinitely, according to local journalists and news reports.

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Peruvian journalist César Quino Escudero
was sentenced on March 21, 2014, to a six-month suspended prison sentence for
defaming the governor of the northeastern state of Ancash, according to news reports. Quino was also fined US$8,400 in damages and
sentenced to 120 days of community service.

New York, April 7, 2014--Authorities in the Philippines must conduct
a thorough and efficient investigation into the murder of a local reporter on
Sunday and do their utmost to bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee
to Protect Journalists said today.

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A few days after our CPJ delegation met with Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif and secured commitments to combat threats to journalists in
Pakistan, I sat down with reporters from the country's most restive regions, who
described in detail the conditions in which they work.

Bangkok, April 7, 2014--A Burmese journalist was sentenced to one
year in prison today on charges of "trespassing" and "disturbing an on-duty
civil servant" while reporting a news story, according to local
reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for the verdict to be
overturned on appeal.

"Do not forget the genocide," said the voice of a state
broadcast announcer in Kigali crackling through a cheap car radio, referring to
the organized slaughter 20 years ago of more than 10 percent of the population.
"We are all one now," he said, speaking in Rwanda's common language of
Kinyarwanda, and meaning that Rwandans no longer identify themselves as being
either Hutu or Tutsi.

New York, April 4, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalist
mourns the loss of Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus and the wounding of
AP reporter Kathy Gannon in Khost, Afghanistan. The two were shot
by an Afghan police officer who approached their car in an election convoy and
opened fire on them in the back seat, the AP reported.

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New York, April 3, 2014--The Committee to Protect Journalists
condemns an attack early today on Adrián López Ortiz, general director of the
Grupo Noroeste, a media group that owns the daily Noroeste, in the state
of Sinaloa. CPJ is also alarmed by a series of threats and harassment against
the paper in recent weeks and calls on authorities to bring those responsible
to justice.

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New
York, April 3, 2014--An independent paper, the Assandi Times, was
suspended indefinitely on Tuesday, according to news reports. The Committee to
Protect Journalists condemns recent measures taken by Kazakh authorities to
shut down independent news outlets in the country.

Morocco's
inclination for wielding terrorism accusations against journalists and news
outlets who report on extremist groups has extended to Spain, where authorities
are investigating El País newspaper
and one of its journalists at the behest of the Moroccan government.

The disappearance and murder in Veracruz from February 5 through 11
of local journalist Gregorio
Jiménez de la Cruz remains mired in controversy.

In mid February, after Jiménez's murder, a group of
journalists traveled to Veracruz and investigated the authorities' response to the
journalist's killing. On March 19, the group, called Misión de Observación, published the
findings of its unprecedented investigation in a report called "Gregorio:
Asesinado por informar" (Gregorio: Murdered for Reporting). Their report documented
Jiménez's disappearance and murder, the state's ineffective response, and the less-than-supportive
working conditions of his newspapers in southern Veracruz.

A female journalist was gang-raped while on assignment in the
Mirzapur district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on March 27,
2014, according to news
reports. The journalist, who works with a Haridwar-based daily in the
neighboring state of Uttarakhand, was working on a story about a historic
pilgrimage site in the area, the reports said.